Viewer on Kubuntu 12.10 beta 2 64bit = crash

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Just a heads-up in case anyone is considering upgrading to the beta: The viewer crashes due to library problems.

One problem is libfontconfig. The viewer presumes 1.x, but Ubuntu switched to 2.10. Another problem seems to be in the perl regex library(?).

The crash from libfontconfig looks like this:

2012-10-15T20:23:15Z INFO: getDynamicFallbackFontList: Getting system font list from FontConfig...
2012-10-15T20:23:15Z INFO: getDynamicFallbackFontList: Language en
2012-10-15T20:23:15Z INFO: getDynamicFallbackFontList: Location US
2012-10-15T20:23:15Z INFO: getDynamicFallbackFontList: Variant UTF-8
2012-10-15T20:23:15Z INFO: getDynamicFallbackFontList: Preferring fonts of language: en
do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin: fcmatch.c:958: IA__FcFontSort: Assertion `result != ((void *)0)' failed.

This can be fixed by a symlink in the viewers "lib" subdirectory: ln -s libfontconfig.so.1.4.4 libfontconfig.so.1

The crash from the regex library is like this:

2012-10-15T20:08:50Z WARNING: LLToastAlertPanel::LLToastAlertPanel: Alert: Note: When you turn on this option, anyone who uses this computer can see your list of favorite locations.
2012-10-15T20:08:52Z INFO: closeFloater: Closing floater toast
2012-10-15T20:08:52Z WARNING: stopModal: LLModalDialog::stopModal not in list!
2012-10-15T20:08:54Z INFO: display_stats: FPS: 41.60

(do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin:13028): GLib-CRITICAL **: PCRE library is compiled without UTF8 support

(do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin:13028): GLib-CRITICAL **: PCRE library is compiled without UTF8 properties support

(do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin:13028): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed

This is with a fresh install of Kubuntu 12.10 64bit, seems to have similar problems on Ubuntu 12.10 64bit. i32-libs are installed of course. The problem occurs with the official viewer, beta viewer and the dev viewer.

[Yuttadhammo Darwinian]

Wow, thanks; I ran the libfontconfig fix and now SL is working for me on Ubuntu 12.10 64bit.  I'm not getting the regex error with the latest viewer, so maybe it is fixed?

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I still get that crash, though it's somewhat sporadic. Just re-installed 12.10 on a new blank machine to see if it still happens. What I haven't tried is native Ubuntu, i.e. not Kubuntu.

[Andria Babenco]

Thanks for the info on libfontconfig. I can confirm that this is an issue with 32 bit Kubuntu as well and it seems on all TPV's that have gone to the new UI. Singularity seems unaffected by this though.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Just an update:

On Kubuntu, the PCRE crash is quite easy to reproduce. Just go to About->Land and select the "Sound" tab. Same thing happens if one checks the preference to show Favorites on the login screen - then the viewer crashes on launch. There's a few other places it also crashes with the same error.

Tested so far on a clean Kubuntu 12.10 install, an install upgraded from 12.04, on 32bit and 64bit. I've checked a few TPVs on a trash (dev) PC and they all exhibit the same crash. What exactly causes it? No idea, don't have the time to hunt it down.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Well... both crashes are still present even in the latest dev viewer. At this point in time, the only viable option seems to be to run the client in Wine (which happens to also fix all sound/media problems), or hope that someday both issues get addressed. I have a suspicion that the regex crash might be Kubuntu specific, though SL is the only program I've seen this so far.

[Qie Niangao]

Hey, Jenni, I just started a thread about the libfontconfig problem persisting in the latest release (3.4.1.266581) -- I would have just added a note here, had I known about this thread. Anyway, yeah, I can confirm it happens with vanilla 32-bit Ubuntu 12.10, and the soft link workaround will succeed, although viewer fonts will look like crap.

I used to get (what seems to be) that PCRE crash reliably whenever I did anything in the viewer that would try to open a file browser. I could get it before logging in, just trying to change the cache location in Preferences. Back then, I got around it by imitating a suggestion in that jira: copying Firestorm's libcollada to the LL viewer's lib/ directory. Now, for some unknown reason, I don't have to do that anymore, but I've changed a lot on my end (new machine, switch from 12.04 LTS to 12.10), so I can't say whether there's been any viewer progress on this.

[PeterPunk Moonshadow]

Qie Niangao, the workaround you suggested could fix any problem when the client is started and running,

but "The crash from the regex library" it happens at client's startup. the client stops running before the login window.

 

 

2012-11-08T09:53:26Z INFO: setStartupState: Startup state changing from STATE_FIRST to (state #1)2012-11-08T09:53:26Z INFO: setStartupState: Startup state changing from (state #1) to STATE_LOGIN_SHOW(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: PCRE library is compiled without UTF8 support(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: PCRE library is compiled without UTF8 properties support(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_unref: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_unref: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_unref: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_unref: assertion `regex != NULL' failed(cool_vl_viewer-bin:3410): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed

 

 

[Qie Niangao]

Oh, okay... guess that's a different PCRE bug, then. Sorry for the confusion.

[PeterPunk Moonshadow]

well, at least that happens with me, but i think Jenni's report comes from Inworld.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

The PCRE crash can happen when the viewer starts up, if "Show favorites on login screen" is checked.

Yesterday I did jump off the deep end and tried various third party clients. So far, it seems that there's at least one client that has the PCRE crash fixed (but not the libfontconfig crash): Firestorm. On the other hand, Firestorm suffers from some other problems - try right-clicking the chat input bar = crash.

Dolphin has the libfontconfig fix, but I haven't actually tried running the client yet. RL work keeps me busy this time of the year.

[PeterPunk Moonshadow]

any news?

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Sorry, no good news... even the latest dev viewer from Nov 15 still doesn't have the trivial libfontconfig fix, let alone the PCRE fix.

It doesn't look like any fix is forthcoming anytime soon.

[PeterPunk Moonshadow]

Meanwhile.... i'm using Singularity Viewer with satisfaction.

[byswed]

Regarding the fontconfig issue:

I figured a way to make Second Life client run in Ubuntu / Xubuntu / Lubuntu 12.10 32-bit, by fixing the fontconfig issue, until Linden Lab fixes the client:

http://freesoftwaredeveloper.blogspot.gr/2012/12/how-to-run-second-life-in.html

 

[3vi1J]

Anyone have any idea if this is ever going to be fixed?  I'm running the KDE desktop on Ubuntu 13.04 (beta) and have run into this bug with every SL viewer I tried:

The official current version - SecondLife-i686-3.4.4.268864
The official beta - SecondLife-i686-3.4.6.269703
The current dev build - SecondLife-i686-3.4.5.270034
Firestorm 4.3.1.31155SL
Catznip R7
Dolphin 3.4.12.27293

They *all* suffer from the PCRE regex crash at startup on my fully patched system using the current libraries.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

It shouldn't crash with the regex error on startup _unless_ show favorites on login screen is selected.

Unfortunately as for the underlying problem I don't know if LL is working on it, at least I've not heard anything anywhere from LL even acknowledging the problem. The libfontconfig issue is fixed in the latest dev viewer, I haven't bothered to check the LL beta/official viewer yet. Even with this fix the viewer is more or less unusable since it crashes practically as soon as you want to do anything in-world: Click on the address bar=crash. Send L$ to someone=crash. Go to Properties->Advanced=crash, look at notecard=crash... etc etc.

For reference, I've tried it on 12.10 32bit and 64bit as well as 13.04 alpha 32bit on different hardware, clean install, all patched up, 32bit libs installed where needed.

[byswed]

At first, libfontconfig was fixed for good, with the latest stable "Second Life Viewer". So, it is better to use the latest stable "Second Life Viewer".

If you are still experiening issues, then delete the .secondlife directory (notice the dot), in your home directory.

 

What is the "PCRE regex crash"? Second Life is not using any PCRE library (at least in Linux).

 

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Look at the first post, second pasted crash.

[byswed]

What happens if someone uninstalls all PCRE packages?

Also, have they tested the latest Second Life Viewer (currently 3.4.4, build 268864)?

[Qie Niangao]

Slightly off-topic, but relevant to modern Ubuntu (and derivatives?), I'd love to know if anybody else crashes with an "ERROR: mainLoop: Bad memory allocation in LLAppViewer::mainLoop()! " when trying to open About Land in the CHUI project viewer.

If it's just me, then I've got some heavy configuration debugging to do, but... well, the CHUI is nearing release status and being merged into TPVs (which also crash for me), so if the problem affects a bunch of us, there could be trouble ahead.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I've just had a look at the latest CHUI viewer, it doesn't crash on 12.04 64bit but has the same problems the other viewers do on 12.10 and newer, regardless of 32bit or 64bit. This was on fresh installs, fully patched.

[Qie Niangao]

Thanks Jenni. As I reported in the jira, I too had no problems with 12.04, but in my case that was a different installation of SL on (very) different hardware from my 12.10 (both 32-bit), so it's most helpful to know it's not just me.

We're going to have to watch this one carefully, especially once CHUI graduates from Project Viewer to Beta, which sounds as if it may be fairly imminent.

[Qie Niangao]

Hey, hey! :smileyvery-happy: There's a CHUI test build that fixes the About Land crash on 12.10 that I've been muttering about.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Edited to actually provide a solution to the problem... that I could get arsed to even debug it is a bad sign for my mental health indeed.

The problem is specific to KDE's GTK appearance layer. Luckily there's a relatively easy way to disable that temporarily (or permanently): rename or remove the .gtkrc-2.0 file in your home directory. If you feel like it, edit the SL startup script to move/rename the file when starting SL and put it back in place when SL is done.

I suspect that it should also work to just install the entire "gnome-desktop" package, haven't tested that yet.

Edited again because of a brainfart: The effect of this is that some controls in the LL viewer will not display properly. Namely spinners, haven't checked any others yet.